CERN signs draft Memorandum of Understanding with Iran

5 July, 2001

Geneva, 5 July 2001. Iranian Minister for Science, Research and Technology, Dr Mostafa Moin, and CERN1 Director-General, Professor Luciano Maiani, today signed a draft Memorandum of Understanding concerning the participation of Iranian universities in the Laboratory's scientific programme. Under this agreement, one Iranian researcher and three students will come to CERN to participate in the CMS experiment, with Iranian industry contributing to the experiment's construction. The Memorandum also paves the way for possible further Iranian involvement with experiments at CERN.

The Iranian researchers, from the Sharif University of Technology in Teheran, the Beheshti University in Teheran, the University of Mashad, and the Institute for Physics and Mathematics in Teheran will be joining the 1800-strong CMS collaboration, which already numbers 145 collaborating institutes. CMS is currently preparing a particle detector to study high energy collisions between protons in CERN's new research machine, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Among the experiment's research goals are understanding why fundamental particles have mass, developing a unified picture of these particles and the forces that act between them, and investigating why nature has provided two copies of the family of particles that make up matter as we know it. The answers to these questions will have a profound impact on our understanding of the universe, its origins, and its future.

In signing this draft Memorandum of Understanding, CERN recognises the excellence of scientific talent in Iran. "We warmly welcome the researchers from Iranian universities," said Professor Maiani, "and look forward to a fruitful collaboration developing over the coming years." With many of the foundations of mathematics being laid in Persia, it is no less than appropriate that scientists from modern-day Iran should participate in the programme of one of the world's leading fundamental research organizations.

Pure science has always brought together scientists united by a common desire to learn more about their universe, and nowhere is this more apparent than at CERN. Since the Laboratory's inception in the 1950s, scientists from around the world have come to CERN to perform their research. Today, the Laboratory's experimental programme embraces some 7000 researchers from over 500 institutes in 80 countries. In keeping with CERN's convention, all results are openly published.

1. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.